Anti-Fraternization
by zephirr
Summary: Rainbow Six: Lockdown. Clark raises some policy concerns. Again.
1. Part 1

"That went well," Chavez said, taking a seat across the desk from a rather cross-looking John Clark.

The older man furrowed his brows. "It went as well as any unauthorized rescue mission in dangerous territory could go."

"Yeah. About that." Chavez managed to look a little despondent. "Sorry."

"You should be," Clark snapped. "We don't need any reasons for policymakers to deny us funding. We're already walking a pretty thin line when it comes to taking everyone's top soldiers."

"Yeah. I know."

"And if that wasn't enough, NATO's analysis was—"

"Oh, give me a break. You know I don't give a damn about what NATO thought of it." Ding shifted in his seat and sighed angrily. "Weber is our guy, Mr. C. They would have killed him. We couldn't just leave him there."

Clark rubbed his eyes. "I know, son, he's part of the team. Believe me, I understand. But either way, you could have gotten the rest of the team killed."

"Like I said, Mr. C. Don't really care about those NATO analysts."

"You have to care, whether you like it or not."

"They don't know us, sir," Chavez insisted. "They don't know our men, what they can do."

Clark crossed his arms and leaned back in the worn leather chair. There would be no arguing with this boy when it came to the abilities of his team — _this man_ , he corrected himself. But he was enough like a boy when he made these decisions, when he disobeyed orders in the name of nobility. Not exactly impulsive, but it certainly came off as that, or worse, as inexperience. Clark wondered if he knew that, but still acted despite the orders not to go after their German long-rifleman. He really did understand the importance of teams, and how much each person meant to one another, and it worried him somewhat that these connections might have bad implications for their leadership... which led him to a slightly different but related topic. "Ding, have you noticed that some of our people are more... attached to each other? In a way that's more than just friendly?"

Chavez tilted his head to the side. "Uh... more intimate, do you mean?" Clark nodded. "Well, it has to be expected. They're all physically fit, intelligent, good-looking people. For the most part," he added for humility's sake.

"Do you worry that those attachments might be bad for the team?"

Ding frowned, clearly trying to answer objectively while protecting his troops. "Well, I might've worried, if they were some run-of-the-mill soldiers who barely knew the handle of a gun from the shooty part," he said, "but these are men and women who know better. Way better."

"So you don't think it affects them at all?"

"No, I don't think that. I think..." He trailed off for a moment and glanced away, formulating his response, before turning back to Clark. "I think it might make things harder for them if we lost someone. But that would impact the whole team, not just someone who'd been sharing the bed with them. I mean, you said it yourself. We all know the risks."

Clark rubbed his chin. "If I recall, Yacoby was not especially thrilled when I said that."

A somewhat flustered look appeared on the younger man's face. "Well, uh, to be fair, she is a bit more invested. I mean, she's... well, Weber is—"

"Did Yacoby demand that you defy orders to rescue him?" he asked very seriously.

He shook his head quickly. "It was my call, Mr. C."

"But did she pressure you?"

That made Chavez pause for a moment. "I... no, she didn't. Listen, sir, I know how much he means to her. He means a lot to everyone, me included. I wasn't about to let him die."

John Clark leaned back with another sigh. "That's what I thought."

"God damn it, John! Wipe that smug-ass look off your face." Chavez squeezed his eyes shut for a split second before opening them again. "I know what it looks like. But even if Yacoby wasn't there, I would have done the same thing."

"It's not good for our purposes, Ding. We need everyone to be able to follow orders here."

"They're smart people. They're not gonna run in there, guns blazing. Even in the Sahara, we had a plan."

"I understand that, but if personal relationships become a problem, then I—"

"Then what?" Chavez snapped, his LA accent making its way into his voice, as it usually did when he was agitated. "You'll confine us all to cages? Maybe try to stop us from talking to each other off the job, or try to make us hate each other? That ain't how it works, 'mano. So what if some of them are best friends, or rivals, or lovers? It don't matter. We are brothers and sisters in arms. There's no deeper bond than that. So if you wanted to get rid of personal relationships because they're problems, well, you already failed, because we're already a goddamn family, and I'll be damned if I don't try to keep it together!"

John Clark regarded him for a long moment, after which he couldn't help but smile. It had always been clear that the Rainbow troops meant a lot to Chavez. It was rather endearing to hear him talk about them so passionately, though he would never tell him that. "I hear you, Domingo," he said calmly. "I really do."

Ding frowned, relaxing a little in his seat. "Then why the big fuss over this? No one died. We got him back."

"Has it ever occurred to you that I feel the same way you feel about our people? That I care about them just as much as you do?" Ding's expression changed to one of slight surprise, but Clark continued before he could say anything. "According to those analysts, I could have lost all of you when you ignored those orders. So forgive me for trying to find a way to avoid that."

They sat in uncertain silence for a while Clark waited for a response. It was evident that, no, the young man in front of him hadn't really thought of that, and he had deflated a little at the fact. Of course Clark cared just as much, if not more; he was the leader, the Rainbow Six. Finally, Chavez looked him in the eye. "Okay. I mean, yeah. Of course you do. But if you really think this is a problem, what would you suggest?"

Clark shrugged. "Beats me. Don't get captured?"

Ding laughed, a welcome sound in the midst of this turmoil. "Easy enough, I guess."

"Not so easy for Weber, apparently. Maybe I should remind him."

His chuckles died down and he sighed heavily, wiping his face with his hands. "Fuck, man. Those guys really mean business. Dieter's made of steel, and you saw how he was when he came back."

Clark simply nodded. The Global Liberation Front was strong, organized, ruthless. Had it been someone else who'd been captured and tortured as Weber had been, he thought, he might instead be scheduling facial reconstruction surgery, or at the worst, making funeral arrangements. "They're tough," he said, not admitting anything further lest he drain Chavez's morale. "But they're not prepared to make a move in some time. That gives us time to plan."

"I hope your intel's right this time," Chavez said with a wry face, clearly making a jab at NATO.

"Relax. It's from our people, Ding, not NATO's. Speaking of our people, we should probably check on them. You pulled off one hell of a job, son," he said, clapping a hand on his son-in-law's shoulder. "Though I suggest you apologize to Tawney before you go. He wasn't exactly appreciative of the way you spoke to him on the phone."

Ding rubbed his neck sheepishly. "Uh. Yeah. Sorry. I wasn't really in the mood for that bullshit."

"Bring that up with him," Clark said as they left the office. "I've got soldiers to congratulate."

 **-0-**

"You don't need to do that." Weber tried to push her hand away, but she faked and he missed completely as she assailed his face with a cotton cloth doused with iodine. "Yana."

She didn't stop dabbing at the cuts on his brow. "What?"

"I'll be fine."

"Yes, you will," she said.

She disposed of the cloth and began reaching for another one. Weber grabbed her shoulders before she could. "Ayana. Really. Most of the things that need healing aren't on my face. You will just be wasting materials now."

Yacoby stared at him with hard eyes. "Listen to me, okay? The GLF doesn't fuck around. We've seen what they do to innocent people. We're hardly innocents ourselves, and then they got you. And to think about what they might have done to you, I..." She trailed off.

"Yana..."

"Let me have this, okay? Just one more."

Weber blinked. "All right, _Schätzchen_. But just one."

Yacoby grinned devilishly, grabbing the cloth, and Weber sighed. No wonder it was always said that losing an argument with a woman was inevitable. She took his face in her hand, tilting his head up so she could dab at a cut on his lip. Weber waited patiently as she finished cleaning it and disposed of the cotton in a secure bag. Then she turned to him, hands on her hips.

"Happy now?" he asked her, smirking.

"Satisfied," she answered. "You really feeling okay?"

"Yes. I'm fine." He tested his jaw. "I may have to refrain from smiling too widely with this side of my face, however."

"That's too bad. You look good when you smile."

"Even now?" he asked as he raised his arms to indicate the white and green checkered hospital gown he was currently wearing.

"Even now," she confirmed. "It's crazy. You even make those ugly things look bearable."

He laughed. "Given what this looks like, I'd say that's the kindest thing I've heard all day." It certainly was a horrendous print.

She grinned. "Bet you'd look even better out of it."

An involuntary shiver ran down his spine as his brain processed the words. He stood, wincing inwardly at the pain though he did his best to hide it. At six feet three inches, he towered over mostly everyone, Yacoby included, though that never seemed to faze her. "Are you sure about that?" he said, one hand on her waist and the other taking her cheek. "I have many bruises."

He leaned down slowly. She was looking up to see him now. "Why don't we try it and see?"

"Heh. This is a hospital."

"So? I'm not seeing the problem." Their noses were just about touching now.

Weber smiled. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. The only problem I can see is you."

His lips hovered above hers, lightly brushing her mouth. "Problems are for solving, _Schätzchen_."

"That they are," she murmured, and for a long while after that, no words were spoken.

 **-0-**

 _ **a/n**_ _I had never seen the Lockdown cutscenes before. Apparently Weber and Yacoby have a thing for each other._

 _The term "Schätzchen" is a diminutive of a popular German term of endearment, "Schatz," which literally translates to "treasure."  
_

 _Part two coming in the next week or so. Leave a review if you like it. Thanks for reading._


	2. Part 2

"Call from the hospital, John," Bill Tawney said after the encryption had fallen into place. "McAllen and Yacoby have both stabilized and are recovering. They're keeping 'em sedated for the next week, though."

John Clark breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally, some good news."

"Tell me about it. The others were worried sick."

"The rest of the team coping okay with all this craziness?"

"As much as one could expect. You know Stanley's tracking another budding extremist organization with some of them. I expect that's why you're keeping mostly the same teams intact."

As if on cue, Ding's voice pierced through the headset Clark wore. "We're pinned down!"

Without hanging up the phone, he spoke into his microphone. "Alpha-2, Weber is inbound." He dialed the switch on his headset and spoke again, carefully. "Weber, this is Six. Chavez can't hear this transmission. If you fall back, the team will fail. Millions will die. I know the danger you're in, but they have to make it. This is where you make your stand. Rainbow Six, out."

"This is Weber," he heard the German say to the team, along with a refusal to retreat after the job was done, to the (rather predictable) protests of his team leader.

"You didn't tell him the good news," said Tawney over the phone, which was still held up to his face.

"Hmm?"

"Weber. You didn't tell him Yacoby's alive."

"So you know about them too?"

A snort. "John, I can't call myself the Director of Intelligence if I can't figure out these things about our own people."

Clark chuckled as much as his stress would allow. "Fair enough."

"So why didn't you tell him?"

He leaned back in his metal folding chair, a hand coming up to stroke the stubble that had formed since he left Hereford. "It's not relevant to him now. During the debrief... let me just say that you didn't need to see the look on his face to know what he was worried about." He pursed his lips before continuing. "This might distract him more than the thought of her dying already does. He doesn't need to think about more. We can tell him the good news when he gets back."

"I suppose so."

"Yacoby better still be alive by then."

Tawney laughed weakly. "She's a strong woman. I'm sure this information will still be true when you get back."

A pause. "Hey, Bill?"

"Yes?"

"You don't think this is bad for them, do you? Getting involved with each other like this?"

"John, this is Rainbow. These guys are the cream of the crop. So yeah, some of them like sleeping with each other — hell, some of them are ex-lovers. But if they can still work together flawlessly with that on their backs, then I don't know what else you're worried about."

Clark thought briefly of who those ex-lovers might be, but decided to keep things on topic. "I've just been getting concerned since Yacoby and Weber are both on these missions."

"It hasn't interfered with their professionalism," Tawney pointed out, "and if it did, I'm sure they'd be the first to know."

"Hasn't it, though? When they rescued Weber, Yacoby was spearheading the mission."

"Ding maintained it was his decision to go through with it. He had quite a few choice words for me, as well," he added, grumbling.

Clark chuckled. "He apologized, didn't he?"

"He did. He's a good kid. But my point is, I think they're fine." Clark didn't say anything, so Tawney continued. "I mean, take a look over at the CIA. Ed and MP don't let their marriage get in the way of work."

"That's true," he admitted, sighing.

"Let me guess. You asked Ding about this already?"

"Yep." He thought for a brief moment before landing on a decision. "Well, I guess it'd be too late to make a change in policy anyway."

There was a short laugh on the other end of the line. "It's better this way, John. They're all in this together."

 **-0-**

There she was, lying there with a mask on her face, breathing mechanized, eyes closed. Weber took a breath before entering the room, as if plunging into water. The room seemed numb, deaf. It felt wrong to see her there, devoid of the temper and fire that gave her such a presence — that pained him more than any other kind of torture. He stood by the bed and took her hand. It felt cold, but he couldn't tell if it was actually cold or if his hands were just much warmer, as the case often was. Presently, he gave her hand a squeeze. There was no response, save for the slight movement of her chest as air was pumped into her lungs.

He let go for less than a minute, using that time to pull a chair in the room to her side. He sat and took her hand again, and stared at her face. Her hair wasn't pulled up anymore, as was to be expected, and it sprawled in wispy waves on the off-white pillow. His eyes followed a tube from a bedside machine that ran through her mask and down her throat. Just a couple more days, he reminded himself. Then they would check to see if she'd be able to breathe on her own, which was extremely likely given how well she was doing, then he'd finally be able to talk to her and tell her the bad guys all died and the good guys were all home. But that was for the future, really. He'd only barely escaped the castle tower without serious injury himself. He was sure she'd fuss over him if he told her. A wry smile crossed his lips as he thought about how she would have reacted if she had been on Chavez's team that night. She would probably have tried to find him, but he knew Chavez was a strong enough leader that she'd listen to him and stay with the rest of the team. He was lucky Chavez himself didn't go after him. He'd gone through a lot of trouble remembering how to be a sneaky son of a bitch just to get that rocket-propelled grenade, which, as it turned out, was extremely useful, not to mention extremely fun to use.

 _Perhaps I should start focusing on demolitions instead_ , he thought with an absent-minded chuckle. He'd tell her about that too, and she'd be sure to laugh like a maniac. Dieter Weber, their big German rifleman, trying to sneak around a castle with an RPG strapped to his back? It was something out of a spy comedy, a real blockbuster. By all accounts, it shouldn't have worked. Yet he did it, and he couldn't but help feel a measure of pride.

He reached out to touch her face with his free hand, his callused thumb brushing lightly over her cheekbone. He was proud of her too, in a way, for making it through this, though he didn't know whether this had to do with willpower or divine intervention or whatever her body decided to do with the wounds it sustained. Price had been talking about her and McAllen an awful lot, praising their abilities in a firefight even as he diminished his own leadership. He kept making it out like it was his own fault that two of the soldiers under his command had been critically injured — not so much indicative of a bad leader as a good one. Price cared enough that he blamed himself for their wounds. A sign of a good man, if a little on the self-deprecating side.

Weber glanced around, and, upon seeing no one near, moved forward to place a gentle kiss on Yacoby's sleeping face, lingering there for a few seconds. Then he leaned back in his chair, swiveling it so he was facing the foot of her bed. His hand took hers again. Outside, the sun had already set. It was dark. He shut his eyes, the beeping in the room a constant reminder that they were both alive.

 _This is enough._

 **-0-**

Clark stepped into the now dimly-lit hallway. There wasn't really much use in checking on these two since they were going to be unconscious for the next few days, but though they'd stabilized, anything could happen. The uncertainty of the human body's reactions to outside stimuli made sure of that. A nurse passed him to enter the room he'd just left, and he looked in after her. At least McAllen was doing fairly well, he thought, watching the nurse check and record his heart rate, blood pressure, and medications. He sighed involuntarily. Roger McAllen was always a lighthearted, easygoing lad. Losing him would have hurt the team badly.

He shook the thought from his mind and walked down the corridor. Only a few doors down from where McAllen lay was where Ayana Yacoby was sleeping, having also been medically induced into unconsciousness. He knew Yacoby was, at the very least, someone who got the job done, even if some people didn't really like her that much. Though he also knew that every single person on the team wanted her to survive. A good soldier was a good soldier, after all, and they were a family, weren't they?

He reached the entryway to her room and his heart nearly stopped. He hadn't been expecting anyone to be in the room, since it was late and most of their people were at home or hanging out in the NCO club. The room was dark, but there was a distinctly male shape next to the hospital bed.

Clark stepped in to acclimate himself to the darkness so he wouldn't give himself away by tuning on the lights. Was it...? Yes, of course, he realized after peering at the man's face. It was Dieter Weber, uncharacteristically slouching in his seat, which Clark found the reason for shortly. His head rested on the back of the chair he sat in, eyes closed, one arm extended so that his hand could comfortably close around Yacoby's. The slow, steady rate of his chest moving up and down told Clark that the man had fallen asleep here.

He glanced at Yacoby. She'd be none the wiser, of course, but he figured she probably wouldn't have minded this setup. It was something special to sleep beside someone you loved, since sleeping was a time when you were ultimately at your most vulnerable. You placed massive trust in the person next to you because you had to. The fact that Weber, a man with an iron constitution and an iron will, so easily slept next to her was indicative of how deeply he trusted her. Clark could respect that.

Suddenly he felt rather intrusive. They were both sleeping, so there was no one to be embarrassed in front of, but he felt his ears grow hot regardless. He stepped out of the room, sparing one last look at the two soldiers, holding hands and sleeping side by side, as if reminding himself that policy really didn't need any changing at all.

 **-0-**

 _ **a/n** "Weber's face during the debrief" is actually mentioned in the game, but not specifically. For those of you who haven't played, after the mission where Yacoby and McAllen are seriously injured and may die, Clark tells him, "Weber, I know how bad this is, but I need you at one-hundred percent. Stay focused. Make me proud."_

 _One could take that as meaning he realizes how dangerous his sniper perch looks. However, given his and Yacoby's previous in-game interactions, my interpretation of Clark's line was that Weber's worry for her is much more likely._

 _There will probably be no more updates on this story. Leave a review if you like it or have something to add. Thanks for reading._


End file.
